![]() The two lead actors pop without winning you over the way Kid ‘n Play did. ![]() Kid ‘n Play had put on a party to remember, but the new movie, much like Kevin and Damon themselves, just goes with the flow of the scam. The film taps into the glitz ethos of the age of social-media envy without necessarily scrutinizing what it all means. Come to LeBron’s house! Mingle with the rich and famous! Pay top dollar to get in! It’s at once a party and a scam, and while the movie, directed by the music-video veteran Calmatic (it’s his first feature), is aware of all that, “House Party” doesn’t exactly strategize ways to make the chicanery funny. ![]() So what if they used his crib to throw the ultimate party, advertising it on Instagram to lure in celebrities and all the people who’ll want to meet them?Īs party dreams go, this one has an undeniable logic (and potential for disaster), but the thing that really strikes one about it is that its goal is as avaricious as it is coldly aspirational. (The trophy room, with an NBA championship ring displayed like one of the Crown Jewels, is the giveaway.) LeBron is off at a meditation retreat in India. They’re about to get fired for smoking a joint on the job, but after exploring the mansion they’re supposed to be tidying up, they realize it’s the home of LeBron James. Kevin ( Jacob Latimore), a single dad who’s trying to be responsible, and Damon ( Tosin Cole), a motormouth would-be party promoter who pronounces his name Da-MON (as if it were French), both work for a home-cleaning service in Los Angeles. The new remake of “House Party” arrives at a moment that could hardly be more different, and that’s something you feel in the film’s very premise. ![]() One reason the film is so fondly remembered is that its fast-break wit was an expression of pure joy. “House Party,” made with affectionate brashness by the Hudlin brothers, celebrated the way that a great party could seem like it was everything. Kid ‘n Play, portraying rival rappers, incarnated the film’s spiky-but-suave, raunchy-but-romantic tone. Somehow landing in the middle of all that, here was “House Party,” a naughty rollicking New Line comedy that was comparable, in many ways, to the John Hughes films or “Animal House.” Yet just as the Spike Lee revolution kicked open the door to movies like “Boyz n the Hood” and “Menace II Society,” “House Party” jump-started a fresh chapter of Hollywood that led to comedies, like “Friday,” that were funky jubilant slices of life. ![]()
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